Orbital Medicine was awarded a NASA Phase 1 Omnibus grant just prior to the federal shutdown. The status of this award is in limbo, but if phase 2 is awarded it will provide development funds for continuation of the microgravity research pioneered by Orbital Medicine.

Orbital Medicine successfully completed a second flight campaign under the auspices of the NASA Flight Opportunities Grant. This flight campaign was undertaken in conjunction with the Reduced Gravity Flight Education Program.

It was exciting to see the pioneering work done by students at some of the United States top universities.

Orbital Medicine wishes to thank both the Flight Opportunities Program, Zero-G Corporation and the Reduced Gravity Office for the assistance in completing the successful research campaign.

The experimental results are being used to create the next generation research designs.

Orbital Medicine has designed a patch for Dr. Kovacs’ October flights at his request. The patch is designed to showcase the Stanford colors and the cardiac electrophysiology that is going to be a portion of the research flight.

The flight patch designed by Orbital Medicine for the Stanford EE research flight.

Dr. Cuttino and the Orbital Medicine, Inc (Richmond, VA) team will be assisting Dr. Greg Kovacs and his team from the Stanford EE department in parabolic flight testing aboard the NASA RGO Parabolic Flight Research Aircraft the first week of October 2012. Dr Cuttino is serving as the medical team lead and consultant, as well as supervising the IRB process for the experiment. The experiment is to evaluate a ballistocardiograph in the microgravity environment and was awarded a NASA Flight Opportunities Grant.

This will be the second Parabolic Microgravity Flight Campaign for Orbital Medicine in 2012.

Orbital Medicine had a successful field test of the prototype structure for a medical chest drainage device today. The flight test took place from Ellington Field, TX with the NASA Reduced Gravity Office. Flown on the Zero G 727-200 parabolic aircraft, the device was tested under lunar and zero gravity conditions. The first tested configurations successfully separated the simulated blood from the air under both gravity conditions and would provide an effective treatment of a pneumothorax in an emergency.

Further flight testing on additional configurations will continue through the end of the week. Two flight are planned for Thursday, weather permitting.

The Orbital Medicine research project has passed the NASA flight readiness review and has been loaded on the Zero G corporation 727-200 in the flight configuration. Should the weather hold out with a visible horizon tomorrow the chest tube drainage system will have it’s maiden microgravity flight thanks to NASA Flight Opportunities and the NASA Reduced Gravity Office.

Dr. Cuttino will be joined by Dr. Shawn Borich, and Dr. Greg Kovacs on the flight tomorrow. Ground support will be by Richard Wiard.